Using Imera, KDE full, amd64, updated to kernel 3.0-4.slh.2-aptosid-amd64.
In Application Launcher -> Internet, there is an icon for launching Blue Devil, that does not work.
It tries to launch something but then stalls and disappears.
I don't know what Blue Devil does, could not find anything useful in Google (comic superhero, USAF blimp, etc.).
I'm pretty sure that I won't use it and will remove it, but it is interesting to know why it is there and why it does not work.
EDIT: OK, so it is the KDE bluetooth stack, still does not work.
All related packages are installed.

Last edited by ckosloff on 15.09.2011, 03:59; edited 1 time in total

browe

Post subject: RE: Problem with Blue Devil Posted: 08.09.2011, 15:13

Joined: 2010-09-12
Posts: 157
Location: Canada
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There are about a half dozen packages related to bluetooth installed by default in Light and Full releases. When I first noticed it I thought it was strange to inclue bluetooth in every install, but I suppose it is a benefit on the live-cd to claim bluetooth support. It would be nice to be able to opt out of services like this during an install rather than "apt-get purge --remove" them after. There is a checkbox for SSH during install, there could just as easily be a checkbox for a few other services.

slh

Post subject: RE: Problem with Blue Devil Posted: 08.09.2011, 15:52

Joined: 2010-08-25
Posts: 807

Status: Offline

The ssh checkbox is there, because ssh(d) is an externally accessible network service and may be a security risk if a new user chooses weak passwords. Bluetooth on the other hand is hardware support, like scanner (sane), printers (cups and several device specific ones like hplip), etc. and doesn't add an external attack vector (you need to do the pairing first, before it accepts remote connections).

The problem with starting to micro-manage these services is maintenance (especially for bluetooth, which has different frontends for XFCE and KDE; likewise the bluez infrastructure already changed significantly several times already) and user expectation. Many (technically speaking even basically all) bluetooth devices are USB based and therefore (mostly) hotpluggable, which means the user expects a newly attached USB bluetooth device to "just work™" and not deal with the frontend to behave 'strangely' when it can't find an active bluez stack. However if you know for sure that you're never going to use bluetooth, just purge it ("apt-get remove --purge bluez"), but a live CD just has to provide hardware support for common hardware[1].

--
[1] if possible in a dfsg-free manner and technically feasible (e.g. huge dependencies chains for niche devices would not be)

ckosloff

Post subject: RE: Problem with Blue Devil Posted: 09.09.2011, 00:53

Joined: 2011-08-16
Posts: 118
Location: Florida, USA
Status: Offline

Great technical reading, but...may I ask why Blue Devil is not launching?